Embedding excellence through fusion of education, research and professional practice
The BU Assessment & Feedback Toolkit has been created to provide a collection of resources for all aspects assessment and feedback. In this series of blogs I will spotlight one section of this large resource collection – this week the spotlight is on Assessment Literacy. This section of the Toolkit contains a Brief Guide to… Read more » about Spotlight on the Assessment and Feedback Toolkit (1)
This week a FLIE Educational Enhancement workshop, led by Anne Quinney, focussed on using the generic assessment criteria. John Moran, Learning Technologist, contributed to the session and encouraged people to use the electronic rubric and to use the QuickMarks facility. The session covered how to use the Generic Assessment Criteria; where they are located in… Read more » about Lively debate in the FLIE Generic Assessment Criteria Workshop
Students at BU, when asked recently, have voiced their wishes for clearer expectations about assignments and for clearer feedback. One of the tools that can be used to enhance feedback is the BU Generic Assessment Criteria, revised in 2021. This recent version places more emphasis on skills such as team-working, group work/project work, self-management of… Read more » about Providing meaningful feedback for students
FLIE’s Principal Lecturer Anne Quinney delivered an Education Excellence workshop on Assessment for Learning. The workshop focussed on the 6 dimensions of Sambell’s model (below) and provided opportunities to discover how to use these in unit design and in designing assessment. Sambell’s model underpins the BU Assessment Design policy (6c) and the BU Generic Assessment… Read more » about Assessment for Learning: Education Excellence workshop
A very long time ago, in the early 1970s, I competed at national level, even dancing in the finals at the iconic Blackpool Tower ballroom, and can share some insights from my ‘lived experience’ of dance competitions. There happened to be a ballroom dancing school in the village I grew up in, famous for its… Read more » about Brass bands and ballrooms: what can we learn about assessment and feedback from Strictly Come Dancing?
This month the open access Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education published a special edition, the Compendium of innovative practice; learning development in a time of disruption. (Issue number 22). https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe This timely peer-reviewed special issue contains 102 short pieces organised into 11 thematic sections that explore the challenges posed by the pandemic and the… Read more » about Compendium of Innovative Practice
A publication this month from the Office for Students (OfS) reports on assessment practices in relation to spelling, punctuation and grammar. This was partly informed by reports from employers that graduates were not meeting their expectations of proficiency in literacy skills. https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/7c292a54-015d-4638-8c30-18e0eba00bf3/assessment-practices-in-english-higher-education-providers-ofs.pdf According to the report (paragraph 7b), “Accurate and effective spelling, punctuation and grammar… Read more » about New assessment report from the Office for Students
The EAT framework, developed by Professor Carol Evans and originally published in 2016, has been re-imagined as part of a European Erasmus +project. EAT is a model designed for staff and students to think about features of effective assessment practice and the interrelated nature of them. There are three core dimensions to the model Assessment… Read more » about The EAT project; equity, agency and transparency in assessment.
The revised version of the Generic Assessment Criteria (ARPP 6f) was approved at Senate in June for implementation in the academic year 2021-22. When you populate your new units in Brightspace you will find a place in the Assessment section where the appropriate level of the criteria, from Level 0/3 to Level 7, can be… Read more » about Making the new Generic Assessment Criteria available to students.
Planning for the next academic year will include deciding on the types of assessments you will set in the units you are responsible for. Whilst many adjustments were made as a result of the impact on teaching and learning of the pandemic there are some constraints on the types of assessments that can be set…. Read more » about Thinking about setting exams? What does the policy say?
